Bread Pudding

I am a sucker for bread pudding. Yeah I know, the carb-laden, zero calories dessert that it is. But I will go weak when I see hot bread pudding in the warmer at the buffet counter. I love the bread pudding at PJ Hilton. Goes so well with vanilla sauce *fei sei lor* LOL!


This bread pudding from RT Pastry House, my favorite bakery looks pretty appetizing but I was disappointed with the taste. It didn't have the ooomph factor.... no milky, vanilla taste that I was looking for. And it ain't cheap too. Next time, I'll ask my mum to bake me some bread pudding. She bakes very good bread pudding, right mummy?

Attracted To The Throne

Lately, Baby is resisting sitting on her potty. Instead, she wants to sit on the throne, aka the adult potty. She is also very attracted to those American Standard toilets that she sees at hotels. When she’s at a hotel’s toilet, she will willingly ask to wee wee in those toilets. I think this is a good start to potty train her and I hope that very soon, she will be diaper-free.

Homecooked Dishes

One of our dinners last week, all of which was cooked by my mil the great cook:


"Sam Pei Jie" - this is a Taiwanese chicken dish cooked with ginger, Chinese cooking wine, sesame seed oil, soy sauce and Chinese basil leaves.


Braised Chinese cabbage with dried scallops and Chinese parsley.

Shallow pan-fried Japanese tofu with minced pork, fresh mushrooms and dried cuttlefish. This dish was a big hit with the kids.

This is one of the luxuries I enjoy when my mil is around - hot piping meals 2x a day and freshly baked breads and cakes every week. She may leave for HK again after Alycia's first term exam and then I will have to take over the kitchen and wok again :(

Junk Food Girls

Apart from ice-creams, the other occasional junk food that I allow my girls to indulge in as treats is fish muruku. Yup, the Popo brand fish muruku which I myself have been eating since I was a kid. According to the food label, there is no MSG wor, only Australian yellow dhall powder, fish sauce, palm oil, sugar and salt.


And after nibbling on the muruku, I force them to chug down gallons of water :D

Hakka Mien With Fresh Mushrooms And Minced Pork Sauce and Homemade Fish Balls

My mil bought some fresh Hakka mien back from Ipoh. I am not one who likes yellow noodles but my mil can always whip up something really yummy with the Hakka mien. She either shallow fries the Hakka mien till they become crispy and prepares an egg sauce with meat ala Cantonese style. Munching on the crispy fried mien can be really addictive and my kids love them. They pretend that they are eating Mammee!

The other day, she prepared the Hakka mien in another style. She blanched the Hakka mien with hot water, some salt and sesame seed oil. This way the noodles are smooth and flavorful and doesn't clump up into a block of starch. Then she prepared the sauce by frying some shallots with minced pork, dried cuttlefish and fresh mushrooms. She also boiled some homemade fish balls and blanched some sweet, fat and crunchy bean sprouts which she bought from Ipoh.


This bowl is for Baby and she loved it to bits. I also deep-freezed some of the mushroom-fish ball-pork sauce into smaller portions for future use. On days when I am in no mood to cook for her, I just heat up the frozen sauce and boil some noodles for her.



This one is for me where the 'liu' (ingredients) are more than the mien, yumsss!! :D

Free White Board From Scotts Emulsion

The girls were super delighted when the mini market owner gave us 2 white boards when we purchased 2 bottles of orange flavored Scotts Emulsion. This free gift that comes with the Scotts Emulsion is every kid's favorite toy. Which kid doesn't like to doodle and draw with a marker pen right? The marken pen ink is also easily wiped off with paper or water. 2 weeks later, we bought another 2 bottles of Scotts Emulsion. Now we have 4 white boards at home and the girls don't have to fight for the white board anymore. Each of them have their very own white board and marker pen. This reminds me that I should get another 2 more bottles of Scotts Emulsion tonight. My 3 girls have been consuming Scotts Emulsion since they were 1 year old.

Lion Eats Lunch Too

Baby was in a mood to play with her toy lion. She didn't want to let go of it and insisted that lion sat on the dining table and watch her eat lunch!


"Mummy, lion sit here peeeeash......"

And after her lunch, lion had to take a spin in the washing machine as it had food all over its mouth too :)

I Know Where To Get Discount Glasses

For the past few months I have been sitting in front of my own idiot box aka my beloved desk top computer for more than 6 hours a day. I know this ain’t good for my eyes but heck, when it comes to work, I tend to overlook my own health. I am beginning to see double now and I think I should get the optometrist to check my eyes when I bring Baby to ISEC for her post-op eye check-up next week. It doesn’t matter that I have to wear glasses. I know where to get discount prescription glasses!

Insomnia

Despite being severely sleep deprived, for the first time in years, I experienced insomnia last night. Despite only hitting the sack after midnight, I just could not fall into a deep sleep. I think I only fell into slumberland past 1am. I got up at 4am to change Baby's diaper and then woke up again at 6am to start the day. I guess there were just too many issues on my mind. I was drafting on my head on what to write about auto insurance quote, how to increase sales of my eStore and a host of other matters. My head is feeling a little heavy now and I ought to take a forty winks now!

Eleventh Hour Rush

Alycia had asked me to help her re-do her art by drawing boxes. She had colored the boxes wrongly in school and her teacher wanted her to re-do it. After coaching her in other homework, I put aside the piece of art work and had forgotten all about it until the next morning at 6am. When she woke up, Alycia threw into a fits, stomped her feet, complained in a shrieking tone non-stop which made me throw into a fits myself!



So how? With less than 5 minutes in our hands to re-do, I had to think quick. Those boxes needed the right measurements to draw. Think, think, thinkety think.... idea popped up.... I quickly zeroxed a copy using my printer and since it's quite transparant on the reverse side of the paper (I held the paper up under the lights to see cleary and dotted all the corners first, then joined them), I traced the boxes hurriedly. Alycia then colored it and vehemently refused to listen to me when I told her that she's still coloring it wrongly. This girl is very pig-headed as well... and I was so pissed off with her that morning... that she kept arguing with me that she's doing it right. When she came home from school that afternoon, she was too embarrassed to tell me that she had done it wrongly again, after confirmation from her teacher, HAH! "SEE, told you you're wrong Alycia. You think mummy has never done this before meh, haiyah!!!"

Socks Fetish

Baby's latest quirk is wearing socks at home. She would rummage her drawer and fish out her favorite socks, then wear them (she knows how to dress up by herself now) and walk round the house. Most times, she will go to the shoes area and wear her jie jies' shoes and play pretend to go kai kai :D

Who Wants To Lose Some Weight?

If you want to lose weight fast, come over to my house and help me babysit my 2 younger girls! Anyone is bound to lose some weight if they have to handle, supervise and discipline these 2 rascals. I have a reader who commented that I should not call my kids rascals. I challenge that person to come to my house and mind my kids for 3 days. Maybe she will take her words back after the first day :D

Don't Like Rice But Love Chicken Rice!

Baby does not fancy eating rice too much. Her taste bud is very much similar to Sherilyn and thank God Baby eats better than Sherilyn. Baby can feed herself pretty well and she chews her food. Sherilyn still needs my mil to feed her at times, especially when it comes to eating rice with dishes. When Sherilyn was younger, she used to store her food in her mouth for the longest time before spitting them out! My mistake of blending her food until she was 3 years old.

Last week my mil cooked a very flavorful pot of chicken rice. She cooked the chicken, mushrooms and chinese sausages with sesame seed oil, a little sodium-reduced soy sauce and a little black sauce. The chicken rice wasn't too salty and I gave some to Baby to try. I thought Baby wouldn't eat the rice but I was wrong. She lurved it and polished off the whole bowl of rice with chicken and mushrooms!


Baby happily whacking her chicken rice and kombu soup.

Angels in pink.... when there's chicken rice, I am rest assured to see 3 happy, smiley faces. I wish I had a wrinkle-free and line-free face like theirs. Wrinkles are starting to sprout out around my eyes and I hope I don't have to use eye wrinkle cream soon :S

If Only I Had 2 Extra Hours Each Day

My friend who came to visit me the other day commented that I look like I have shrunken and my eyes look like they have sunken. I couldn’t agree with her more. I may even need to apply the best anti wrinkle eye cream on my eyes very soon. You know, I wish there were 2 additional hours in a day granted to me so that I could have that extra 2 hours of beauty sleep each day. The hours tick away really quickly everyday and I always go to bed at the end of each day feeling that I still have lots more to do.

Bye-Bye Bath Tub

The day came last week when I finally had the heart to part with the huge bath tub that my 3 girls used to bathed in. I bought it 4 years ago when Alycia was 2yo and Sherilyn 1yo. Then Baby bathed in it but stopped using it a year ago. Since it's really bulky and taking up a lot of space in our bathroom, I finally decided to give it away. I am always very sentimental when it comes to giving away stuff that my girls once used.


Baby stepping into her bath tub for the last time before daddy took it away :(

Sticking To Sticks

Of all the biscuits and cookies that they have tasted, sticks biscuits still top my girls' preference. With sticks, the biscuits are often polished off in a jiffy. No need to keep for weeks and months in the cookie jar till they turn soft and rancid. No wastage with sticks. I love sticks too. They were my childhood favorites too. I'll stick to sticks for rewards if they are good :)

A Not So Disciplined Ballerina

This is a typical scene on a Monday night. Sherilyn comes home from ballet class at around 8:30pm and without even changing, she would sit at the dining table to eat her second dinner. As usual Miss Dilly Dally will take her own sweet time to eat, turning a deaf ear on my nagging her to quickly eat, she would walk round the house, join daddy who's watching TV and dilly dally away until she's threatened to hurry up or get caned. When all is done, shower taken and pjs on, she would only be ready to go to bed, with battery all conked out at around 10:30 - 11:00pm.

Zoom over to Old And New Stuff For Sale to check out my latest collection!

New Bib Again

I chilled out at the 100 Yen Shop 2 Sundays ago while the hubs brought Alycia to the hair saloon for a haircut. While browsing through the stuff there, I spotted a stack of plastic bibs with pocket (with cute pictures too!) and it only cost RM4.90. Plastic bibs must be their latest added items. It's rare to find cheap and nice plastic bibs with food tray / pocket. Without any hesitation, I quickly put one in the basket. Was so tempted to get all the colors too haha! Now, Baby has another new plastic bib to add to her collection. And did I tell you that I still have 2 brand new plastic bibs at home?

Free Great Tasting Recipes

Many mothers whom I know of struggle everyday to whip up tasty and healthy recipes for their family. This includes me as I have 4 pernickety eaters at home – 3 young babies and 1 big baby! When my mil is around, I can leave this hair splitting chore to her but whenever she’s away on her few-times-a-year overseas stay, I have to crack my head to draw up the week’s lunch and dinner menu every week on end. When my kids were younger, they were not that picky in their choice of food. Now that they have tasted the ‘real food’ aka adult food, they no longer want their bland, healthy stuff. They want food that tastes great - salty and flavorful food. They prefer take-out food that’s often laden with sodium and MSG but I try to limit their intake of take-out food.

I get annoyed whenever my kids tell me “oh no, not again mummy. I don’t like this!” to the dishes that they see placed on the dining table. Being greeted with such remarks after sweating it out in the hot kitchen preparing their food is really discouraging. On one hand I feel really unappreciated and taken for granted. On the other hand, they are just kids and they mean what they say. In times like this, I tell myself that I have to get some great cooking tips and recipes to whip up something different to whet my fussy eaters' appetite.

I stumbled upon ivillage.com when I was searching for healthy recipe for kids. There are hundreds of great tasting recipes from recipes for kids to low sodium recipes, healthy recipes, low fat recipes, vegan recipes, low budget recipes, quick recipes, recipes for breakfast, appetizers, main course and much more. One recipe that I have to try out is the sweet and sour chicken. This recipe does not require any stir-frying and it’s mess-free, quick and easy to prepare and looks absolutely delicious too. I have already book-marked ivillage.com and will definitely refer to this website to try out the sweet and sour chicken recipe when it’s time for me to take over the wok and spatula again!

You Mess Up, You Clean Up

Baby must have seen her 2 jie jies cleaning up the mess they created. I have a rule in place at home. This rule was created recently as I just cannot afford the time to keep cleaning up the mess my 2 older girls create. Whoever spills drinks and food, they are accountable for cleaning up. Whoever plays toys and takes out the jig saw puzzle, they are responsible for keeping them once they're done.

When Baby spilled a bowl of Cheerios the other day, she ran to the table and pulled a few pieces of toilet paper.... and then began sweeping the Cheerios with the toilet paper. She then finished off by wiping the floor with a towel that Kakak had left outside the kitchen, just like how kakak does it everyday. She sure has a sharp learning curve haha!






Just like how kakak and mummy wipe the floor.